'SEE YOU MORNING' 098 The Corridor of Years

The dim light of the oil lamp flickered, weakly illuminating the corner of the wall in the darkness. The continuous rainy days filled the wooden cabin with a damp smell. She turned over, and the lamp lit up the silhouette of her body. She didn’t look like Ruth. Who was she? Lübeck was puzzled. It seemed he and she were in a marital relationship, yet she was not the woman he knew.

He got up and left the room. Outside was the deep blue night, and a cool breeze brushed against his body, bringing a refreshing chill. But in the dark night, he couldn’t see far ahead on the path; beside his feet were fields. After wandering aimlessly for a while, Lübeck looked back at the way he had come, but in the misty night, he could no longer see the path behind him. The road under his feet had somehow become flat ground. He tried to jog back in the direction he had come from, but it felt as if he had entered a completely different space, and he could no longer find the way home.

In his urgency, he quickened his pace, but no matter how he ran, he felt as though he should have covered the distance he had just come from, yet all around him was empty, a dark, misty void.

Lübeck began frantically running and searching in all directions, but suddenly his foot stepped into nothing. He opened his eyes nervously—it was a dream.

Brittany was sleeping beside him, but as Lübeck replayed the scene from his dream, that woman was not her. It was strange, incomprehensible, and meaningless. Seeing that it was still early, Lübeck placed his hand on Brittany’s hip, trying to clear the noise in his mind and fall asleep again.

“Wake up, wake up, time to get up,”

He opened his eyes. Brittany was shaking him. When he saw her face upon waking in the morning—those big, brown-green eyes, her golden hair not yet tied up, falling softly beside her cheeks—Lübeck felt a nameless joy. Was it that her youthful energy had infected him, or was it the comfort of having a lover, or perhaps his lonely heart had finally found someone to entrust itself to? It was her, pulling him out of his endless longing. But what about Ruth? Where was she at this moment? The care he wanted to give her felt so powerless. A 25-year-old body carrying the bitterness of a life over 52 years—maybe that was why some people chose to erase their memories when they reversed their age.

The operation of the military department was like a wound-up mechanical clock: get up, wash up, then to the mess hall, then each rushed to their own post. Again at the mess hall entrance, when they were about to part, Lübeck suddenly felt an inexplicable dread of separation. He grabbed Brittany’s hand as she was about to leave.

Brittany turned her head, looked at Lübeck with a smile, her figure so light. The distance between them closed again. After a kiss and an embrace, they reluctantly said goodbye and parted.

The Mars base was a key stronghold of the secret space program led by the United States, operating with cross-era technological support from unknown sources. Lübeck had also questioned the origins of technologies like the space-time stargate and the starship’s anti-gravity engines. Although there were rumors of extraterrestrial origins, he did not have access to more detailed information.

This base primarily docked orbital aerospace carriers and their embarked fighter jets, with the corresponding pilots and crew also stationed here or rotating for training. Especially for new crew members who needed a period of adjustment to adapt to the new model of aerospace carrier. Lübeck also needed time to recuperate before setting sail again.

In the past, Lübeck had only served in the U.S. Navy, commanding surface vessels through maritime military operations from the Iron Curtain to the Cold War era. Looking back on those years, Lübeck could never forget how Ruth had managed to immigrate with him to the United States before World War II, avoiding the war in their homeland. And his participation in the Pacific theater against Japan did not affect him personally because of his German identity; his promotions during and after the war went smoothly.

The care in his childhood, the immigration, attending military academy—every time he thought of all that Ruth had done to pave the way for his life, Lübeck was filled with gratitude, always feeling he could never repay her. He wished they could meet again in the next life to continue his heartfelt wishes, but—

When senior officers gathered, they would arrange and execute various training and exercise operations to maintain the soldiers’ readiness and discipline. Aside from routine duties, Lübeck most enjoyed chatting with the technical officers on the carrier, especially the electronic warfare officer, intelligence officer, and others, because he could learn more about technological advancements.

The exchange and synchronization of information from multiple sources was always time-consuming, and soon the morning had passed. Brittany and Lübeck had agreed that each would accompany the other to meals, so they took turns dining in each other’s mess halls. At noon today, Brittany again took Lübeck’s hand and walked into the soldiers’ mess.

As soon as they entered the mess, they caused quite a stir again. Brittany still enjoyed being the center of attention, and Lübeck had certainly noticed that long ago. But now he was thinking: Did Brittany actually fall for him, or did she just want this feeling of showing off?

But faced with the enthusiastic soldiers and staff, Lübeck had to interact and greet them first. Shortly after they sat down to eat, a soldier who knew Brittany came over, holding up a new smartphone for her to see.

“Look, you’re in the recruitment ad,”

Lübeck also leaned in to look. It turned out that the moment when he and Brittany had embraced and kissed at the officers’ mess entrance that day had been captured and published in a recruitment ad—though it was unclear whether it was an ad for the entire Navy or for the secret space force.

There was also a slogan: “Here is your love, here is your dream, here is your different life.” Lübeck smiled as he looked at it. Clearly, this had been done without the consent of the portrait rights holders, but what did a soldier truly own for themselves?

The space in the base was truly limited, with many people in the public areas. For their post-lunch walk, they had to find a corridor with a view of the outside, which was relatively quiet. Seeing no one around, Lübeck leaned close to Brittany’s ear and said,

“Maybe we need to be a little more low-key. I’m afraid someone might be jealous of you and do something to hurt you—just in case,”

“Oh,” Brittany replied, looking at Lübeck. She seemed somewhat reluctant, or perhaps didn’t quite understand.

Lübeck smiled slightly and continued to explain,

“I don’t want you to take any risk at all. I don’t want you to suffer even the slightest harm, alright?”

“Alright,” Brittany smiled, seeming satisfied with this explanation, and leaned happily against Lübeck.

Lübeck transferred her hand from his left to his right, freeing his left arm to wrap around her waist. The midday sun on Mars, orange-red and dim, shone through the glass window without any warmth on their bodies. Yet that touch of warm color draped over them and spread at their feet seemed like a witness to the years, accompanying them step by step as they walked onward, past the light of each window and the shadows between them, all the way into the depths of the corridor of time.